Tuesday, March 6, 2012

UP elections: The winners and losers

Lucknow, Tue Mar 06 2012, 17:07 hrs

Samajwadi Party will form the next government after winning 214 seats, routing Mayawati's BSP. In the battle royale in Hindi heartland, Mulayam Singh-led SP rode on an anti-incumbency wave to dislodge Mayawati looking to win a clear majority on its own.

Rahul Gandhi, who put up a spirited campaign for the party, appears not to have made much impact but still can take solace from the fact that seats for it have gone up marginally up from 22 earlier.

Here are the some of the winners and losers in 2012 Assembly elections in UP:

* Sitting independent MLA Mukhtar Ansari, who fought elections under the 'Quami Ekta Dal', wins from Mau Sadar seat by defeating his nearest rival Bhim Rajbhar of BSP by a margin of about five thousand votes.

* Leader of Opposition in the UP Assembly and SP nominee Shivpal Yadav today retained Jaswantnagar seat by defeating BSP's Manish Yadav by a margin of 81,084 votes.

* Heavyweight D P Yadav loses from Sahaswan Assembly seat where Onkar Singh Yadav of SP won defeating BSP's Babar Miyan by 7,062 votes. Yadav had contested as a candidate of his own party Rashtriya Parivartan Dal.

* UP BJP president Surya Pratap Shahi was today defeated in Pathardeva constituency by a margin of 4,800 by SP's Shakir Ali.

* Former SP MLA Vijma Yadav wins Pratappur seat, defeating Mujtaba Siddiqui of BSP by a margin of about 12,000 votes. Interestingly, both Yadav and Siddiqui were having their first shot at Pratappur, courtesy the latest delimitation.

Siddiqui was a three-time sitting MLA from Soraon, which has now been declared as reserved, while Yadav used to represent Jhusi which she had lost in 2007 and which has ceased to exist following the latest delimitation.

* Congress MLA from Allahabad (North) Anugrah Narain Singh has retained his seat, defeating Harshvardhan Bajpayee of BSP by a margin of more than 15,000 votes.

* Two-time BJP MLA from Bara, Udaybhan Karwaria, who contested from Allahabad (North) following his own constituency being declared as reserved, finished third.

* The SP has registered yet another handsome victory in Soraon, which is considered to be a stronghold of the BSP and has been declared a reserved seat in the latest delimitation.

Former UP minister and sitting Handia MLA Rakesh Dhar Tripathi has lost to Mahesh Narain Singh of Samajwadi Party by a margin of over 45,000 votes.

Tripathi had won the seat in 2007 on a BSP ticket but left the party upon his expulsion from the state cabinet following allegations of corruption against him.

* The former minister for Higher Education fought the current elections as a candidate of fledgling outfit Pragatisheel Manav Samaj Party.

* In Allahabad (West), first-time BSP MLA Puja Pal has retained her seat defeating nearest Apna Dal rival Atiq Ahmed, a mafia don-turned-politician who has represented the constituency five times in the past and is a key accused in the murder of her husband Raju Pal.

* Pal defeated Ahmed by a margin of about 7,000 votes, while Jyoti Yadav, a former Ranji cricketer and SP candidate, finished third.